Greetings Supporter of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide!’ Campaign (SMWeCGEC)

You may have recently heard about the University of Glasgow Reparative Justice Initiative which was reported in the press, after a year-long study conducted by the University’s History of Slavery Steering Committee (HSSC) discovered that the university benefited from the equivalent of tens of millions of pounds donated from the profits of Afrikan people’s enslavement in the Caribbean.

The report states that although the university itself “adopted a clear anti-slavery position” during the 18th and 19th centuries, it received gifts and bequests from people connected to enslavement. The report concluded that the university benefited by between £16.7m and £198m, depending on how the amount is updated to its present-day value.

As a result of the study, it is reported that the university will create a centre for the study of slavery and has agreed to add a memorial or tribute at the university in the name of the enslaved.

The report also identifies that the University of Glasgow will pursue the negotiation and signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the University of Glasgow and the University of the West Indies, “designed to fit the needs and requirements of UWI staff and students.” It is proposed that the MOU might include, for example:

(a) A short-term visiting fellowship for UWI academic staff
(b) Student scholarships for UWI students
(c) Develop relationships in focused areas (for example, medicine, engineering)
(d) Work collaboratively with UWI to advance research and education in the
fields key to reparative justice (e.g. health, history of slavery and its
legacies, post-colonial economic development etc).

You can find the HSSC report ‘Slavery Abolition and the University of Glasgow’ here: SLAVERY ABOLITION AND THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. The proposals regarding the University of Glasgow’s reparative justice programme can be found on pages 16-17.

In response to the proposed reparatory justice programme, the SMWeCGEC has written an open letter to the HSSC which produced the report.

A vital matter of reparations ethics which the SMWeCGEC has asserted elsewhere including in the letter to the UK Prime Minister accompanying the 2018 hand-in of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Petition is that those making reparations claims on behalf of Afrikan heritage communities, outside the UK, but seeking to make negotiations with UK state institutions, should first and foremost engage in proper consultations and strategy development with Afrikan heritage communities in the UK. So, public consultation and community engagement is also an expectation and requirement of state institutions in Afrika, the Caribbean and elsewhere.

Further info about public engagement and universities from the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement can be found here.

Until next time!

‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide! Campaign International Steering Committee Spearhead Team (ISC-SMWeCGEC)